March 14, 2011     

Prof. Paul Light's book, "Driving Social Change," Explores Social Entrepreneurship

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Professor Paul Light's latest book looks at social entrepreneurship in a global context and includes a foreward by Catherine Reynolds.

Paul Light's  critically praised new book, "Driving Social Change: How to Solve the World's Toughest Problems," marks the inaugural collaborative work of his NYU Center for Global Public Leadership for Social Change, which is a joint initiative of NYU and the government of the United Arab Emirates to promote public service and social change across the globe, drawing on research, case studies, and networks.

In the book, whose foreward is by Catherine B. Reynolds, chairman of the board of the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, Light cogently considers the "onslaught" of urgent threats around the world, from epidemics and political corruption to failed states and environmental devastation. But he writes from a hopeful perspective about the possibility for improvement, "based on the notion that intractable problems can be solved if agents of change have the purpose and perseverance to confront the status quo...."

Light is Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, home of the NYU Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship. At the center of his thought are change agents known as social entrepreneurs. He engages the following questions: Are we relying too much on lone wolves, such as the social entrepreneur?; what are the key drivers of social change?; how do breakthroughs really occur?

"Social entrepreneurship," writes Light, "is a critically important part of the agitation needed for change," but hardly the only ingredient. The book focuses on the overall pieces that must come together to create breakthroughs. And it shows why it takes more than a good idea or plan of action to solve the world's toughest problems.








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